The Inner Ring

We all have experienced this before. Being in a group of friends, or if you are not so lucky, wishing to be in a specific ring of people. These rings are the focus of C.S. Lewis in his 1944 oration, "The Inner Ring." This ring has more implications than in High School, but also throughout everything we do in life.

When I first read of Lewis' inner ring, and started digesting this work, one of the first things I thought of was high school and the many cliques that exist. This is something that Lewis mentions in his writings. Too often we are to influenced by our social status, and try hard to achieve a group of friends that we deem will make us popular. Such vanity causes us to possibly say or do stupid things, and make us act unlike the people that we are. We must find out who we are, and then find friends whose interests conform with are own. Then we are truly happy. As Lewis states, "I am not going to say that the existence of Inner Rings is an evil." A circle of friends that hold you up in the Lord can be a very good thing, and something that will bring you happiness on earth, and a happier relationship with God.

This causes us to move now in a different direction, the impact of rings in the Christian faith. The first thing that must be addressed is rings within an individual congregation. These can be extremely harmful and dangerous. The difference between a ring and a clique is an extremely fine line, and one that can easily be crossed. A ring of say a youth group or a Bible Study is a good thing, but when that ring becomes a clique that doesn't welcome other members of the church or even worse visitor's to the church is very harmful. We also must be careful about making a ring as a church as a whole. The power of being members of Christ's kingdom is that we all have each other to lean on, however, there is always room for more into the fellowship of God. That means we must be open to welcoming new comers, to bring them in and care for them. One of the reasons that Gandhi didn't become a Christian is that he was shunned from a church once for the color of his skin. Certainly evil, and wrong. There is one more issue I would like to address and that is the issue of the rebuke of members of the Christian ring. It was mentioned in class that we must be more caring for those in the church who are dealing with struggles, and I would like to make some points. As Christians, we have a calling to love our fellow believers, and help them in their struggles. However, if there is reason to believe that they are bringing the body down, they must be thrown out; there is no place for them in the church. As the Bible emphatically states, those who come to the table of the Lord in an unworthy manner bring judgement upon themselves and everyone else. This is both terrifying and serious, and we must be conscious of its ramifications. We must be caring in our treatment of the Inner Ring of Christians.